The Switch (11 page)

“Please… oh, please,” she blurted out, not
giving a damn about pride or dominance or anything anymore but the
need to come. Grayson wasn’t cruel. He was an asshole sometimes,
but not outright cruel.

“Yes, my love. Come,” he said, his hand
coming down across her bottom for the thirteenth time, then sliding
between to coax her aching clit with his fingers. His other arm
snaked around her front, cradling her as her orgasm ripped through
her body so fiercely.

Marion wondered if she’d blacked out. When
she opened her eyes, she was being gently settled onto her back.
Her arms and legs were free, and all the toys had been removed from
her body. She could have and probably should have used that
opportunity to steal back her dominance, but there was already a
very delectable, complex, and powerful man nestling between her
legs. Looking up into those whiskey-colored eyes, she found raw
heat and something else she couldn’t define.

“Now,” he said with a sinful grin, “my
turn.”

“Fuck.” she gasped as he drove into her, her
legs automatically coming up to circle his hips.

He was so goddamned perfect, even in the
most vanilla position possible. Brushing the hair from her face, he
rested an arm beside her head, his eyes pinning her in place,
daring her to blink or look away. His other hand slid beneath her,
pulling her closer to him while holding her in position. He pulled
out and slid back in, deep, long, hot, and controlling, all the
while never breaking his gaze.

“Touch me,” he rasped. A soft moan rumbled
through him as she feathered her fingers up that beautifully
muscled chest, nails scraping his nipples the way she’d discovered
he loved. Only then did his eyelids flutter closed, his pace
picking up as he dropped his forehead to hers.

Marion let her eyes close, too, not wanting
to think or observe, but only feel as he made love to her.

‘
Made love?’ oh, hell no
, she
thought, but quickly shoved it away for a later internal
argument.

He’d found the perfect angle, and was
quickly pulling her with him to another climax. For a few minutes
she let herself bask in the false feeling of something more than
casual sex. Kisses peppered her face, lips, and eyes; imperfect and
clumsy and so painfully tender. She returned them in kind as they
spiraled upward again, this time together.

“Oh, fuck, sweetheart,” Grayson grunted. His
rhythm turned erratic as she hit her peak, muscles clenching around
him and her body arching blindly beneath his. “Fuck – I… Oh, god, I
love you,” he rasped, his body going rigid and a low, harsh groan
of ecstasy tearing from his throat. “Love you so much, my Marion,”
he muttered stupidly into her ear as his weight collapsed on his
forearms.

Her
heart stopped for a brief second before plunging into ice cold
reality. He didn’t love her like that, she told herself. Further,
it was a shitty way to joke around, even if she of all people knew
better. She gave his shoulder a hard shove, both to get him off of
her and for saying something so utterly stupid.

“Oof,” he said with a boyish grin. “You
could have just asked politely.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes now. “When have I
ever asked politely for anything?” she joked, pulling the covers up
over her and turning onto her side. She was a mess and she needed
to clean herself and her bedding, but it would be poor form to run
immediately to the shower.

“Mm,” he replied, “one of the many things I
adore about you.”

‘
Adore,’ not ‘love.’ See?

“Funny,” she said awkwardly, not knowing
what to say, now.

“Marry me.”

Now her eyes flew to his face, expecting
more jokes despite the lurch in her chest. She couldn’t read him
now, however. There was a little smile there, but – she couldn’t
fucking read him. So she did what was safest.

“Fuck you.” With a scowl, she kicked the
covers off and got up, stomping to the bathroom without looking
back.

Grayson blinked. That wasn’t quite the
answer he expected. Then again, he hadn’t exactly planned on
proposing marriage. What the hell was he thinking?

Well, he wasn’t thinking, he guessed. He
didn’t need to think. He fucking loved her. God damn, but he loved
her. Sure, he’d known that for some time. But now he knew she was
absolutely the perfect woman for him. There was never going to be
another Marion McKellan. So, yeah, he wanted to marry her.

“That settles it,” he muttered to himself
before hauling himself up out of bed and bee-lining to the bathroom
after her.

The shower was already running, so he let
himself in. “What the hell kind of answer is that?”

“What the hell kind of joke is that?” she
snarled from the other side of the glass.

“It’s not a joke,” he said, kicking the door
closed behind him.

“Then it’s even more bullshit.” Her voice
was oddly tight and he watched as she stepped under the spray, face
tilted up to the water. Something was wrong, really wrong.

“What the fuck, Mare? What is it? If you
don’t love me, then fine – tell me.”

She gave a bitter sounding laugh. “And then
what?”

He refused to believe she didn’t love him
right back. She wouldn’t have risked their whole friendship like
this if she didn’t feel something strong enough to make it worth
it. “Then I’ll know you’re lying. And I guess I’ll have to pursue
you until you say yes.”

He heard her sigh, watched as she went
still, the water beating down on her luscious body. Damn, but he
was already getting hard for her again. He was about to say ‘fuck
it,’ barge into the tiny stall, and seduce her into saying ‘yes,’
when she spoke.

“I spoke to Olivia at the party.”

“Lucky you,” he said with a snort. What the
hell did his sister have to do with any of this?

“She told me.”

“Told you what?” he asked .

Marion let out an aggravated huff and turned
off the water. She opened the door and faced him directly. “She
told me about your parents. You know, about how you’re expected to
marry someone soon, and someone ‘respectable’?”

Grayson’s face must have looked as clueless
as he felt, because she rolled her eyes and snatched a towel from
the rack, wrapping it around herself. He shook his head. “O-kaay,”
he said. “Then this whole marriage proposal thing should be
perfect, right?”

“Oh, yeah - right. Another way to thumb your
nose at them, I suppose,” she snapped, leaning over to towel her
hair furiously. “I should be used to that by now.”

“Whoah. Hold on a second. You’re about to
scrub your scalp raw, there. And you’re really not making any
sense.”

“Oh, no?” Her voice was becoming a little
shrill. “Tell me our whole friendship didn’t start because I was
the social outcast. That’s always been my role, Gray – the shock
value, the girl from the wrong side of the golf course. Your own
little personal rebellion.”

“My personal reb--” he began, but stopped in
a moment of clarity. “That’s what you think this is?”

“Hey, I’m okay with it – I could have dumped
your ass years ago if it bothered me that much,” she continued,
plopping down on the edge of the tub and rubbing lotion into her
skin with quick, jerking movements. “But proposing marriage to me
to piss them off? That’s an asshole move, Jones, and you know
it.”

He grabbed her hands to stop her. “You’re
right. It is an asshole move, and I would hope you’d know me better
than that by now.”

He knelt on the floor before her and looked
up into her face. “You honestly think I’d do that? You think that’s
all our friendship meant to me, this whole time? Sweetheart, even
if you were that deluded, this is the twenty-first century. Parents
don’t go around arranging marriages for their kids.”

“No, but they can cut you off financially,”
she said, as if that was the answer to everything.

“Like they haven’t already?” he asked
incredulously. “What do you think happened when I chose not to go
to Harvard? It was ‘Harvard or bust, son.’ Luckily, I’d planned for
that so far in advance that the scholarships covered my tuition
elsewhere.”

“But you don’t really
work
, Gray. I
mean, not for any substantial income.”

“Don’t have to. Investments.”

“Why didn’t you go to Harvard?” she
whispered, looking down at her hands in his.

“Mostly to piss my dad off,” he admitted
with a shrug. “But you were a helpful deciding factor, too.”

The look she gave him was skeptical. He
laughed. “I’m not going to say I’ve been in love with you since
high school. But you’re my best friend, Mare,” he said with a note
of seriousness. “You’ve always been my best friend.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” she quietly
insisted. “Olivia made it sound like--”

“Dad’s running for congress, and Olivia is
trying her damnedest to bring me ‘back into the fold.’ Some big PR
maneuver. She probably thinks if she got me away from you, got me
to marry someone she deems ‘respectable,’ then the parents would
welcome me back with open arms and we’d be one big, happy family
again.” He couldn’t help the twinge of guilt over his estranged
sister. But if his family couldn’t accept him on his terms, too
bad.

Marion’s silence started to weigh on his
chest. She was saying ‘no,’ damn it. Of course she was saying no.
What the fuck had he done? She’d probably planned this whole thing
as a sort of fuck-buddies scenario and he’d gone all psycho on her
and proposed marriage.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“I thought Corbin was your best friend,” she
finally said.

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly going to bend
over and let Corbin fuck me with a riding crop, am I?” Grayson
muttered.

The familiar little snort of a laugh she
gave threaded some hope into his heart. All might not be lost.
Maybe he could at least salvage their friendship from all of this.
So, swallowing back his bitterness, he chuckled and stood, pulling
her with him before releasing her hands. “Well, I guess you’re not
accepting my proposal,” he said lightly. “But maybe I could borrow
your shower before you kick me out?”

She gave him a half-grin and nodded to the
stall door before easing past him to the bedroom. He swallowed back
the sick feeling in his throat as the door clicked shut behind
her.

Marion blew out a long exhale as she heard
the water start up again. What the hell was she supposed to
say?

Say ‘yes,’ dumb-dumb.

But the whole thing seemed so unlikely. Fuck
that – it came completely out of left field. For all she knew,
Grayson was suffering some weird sexual endorphin rush from the
whole experience, and by morning he’d come to his senses and laugh
the whole thing away. The idea made her insides ache.

She rubbed at the knot in her chest and
looked around the room. Man, they’d made a mess. The air smelled
faintly of sex, and suddenly her whole apartment felt stifling. She
needed to breathe and think. Although it was probably well below
sixty degrees outside, she wrapped her big, fluffy bathrobe around
herself, threw open the one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, and
stepped out onto the fire escape, climbing the narrow wrought-iron
stairs to the rooftop.

He loved her.

He’d said it three times, in fact.

God, what a shock.

“How long?” she asked out loud. She knew he
was there, had heard him climb the fire escape not long after she’d
come out.

“How long what?”

She glanced in his direction, tried to read
him again, and failed, again.

Man up, McKellan
, she told herself.
He’d at least had the balls to say it – to say anything of what he
felt.

“How long have you been in love with
me?”

He swallowed hard enough for her to see it.
“Not sure,” he replied, leaning over the railing next to her. “A
while.”

“A while,” she repeated. “Why didn’t you say
anything? Do anything?”

“Why didn’t you?” he snapped. “Or – oh,
wait. I guess this is a one-sided thing, yeah?”

“No.”

That made him shut up for a good, long
second. “No?” he asked softly.

“Damn it, Gray,” she sighed. “All this time,
I’ve had to watch you fuck around with how many women, while I was
just your ‘buddy.’ Why the hell do you think I left, that summer?
Why do you think I moved away?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and it actually
sounded like he meant it. “If I had known--”

“How could you not know? Did it never occur
to you, even after this summer?”

“That’s not what I meant. I… kind of
suspected.”

At that, she gave a bitter laugh.
“Fantastic.”

“Mare, will you just listen to me?” He
grabbed her elbow and made her face him. “If I had known we shared
the same… interests,” he said with a wave of his hand, “I would
never have waited. That’s why I never made a move on you, why I
played around but never settled down. That’s why I wound up at your
club. I was desperate.”

“Desperate?” she asked, shaking her head in
confusion.

He took a visibly deep breath. “I never
dreamed, in a million years, that I’d find a woman I could share
this with, in an actual relationship.”

She couldn’t help the incredulous laugh.
“It’s not that weird of a kink, Gray.”

“You wanna tell that to the rest of our
little whitebread society? I don’t see you advertising your
extracurricular activities to anyone else. Hell, you never even
told me until tonight. You have a goddamned contract termination
form waiting down there for me because it’s such a big secret.”

Oh, fuck.
Marion opened her mouth to
cobble together some kind of explanation, but he cut her off.

“Never mind it. The point is, I thought
maybe, if I went someplace like
Ten
, tried it out in person,
maybe I’d get over it.” He shrugged and looked out at the city
skyline. “And if I could be normal, then I might finally have a
chance with you.”